


What’s Your Favorite Animal?

by IneffableDoll



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Accidental Confession, Crowley Just Wants To Be Loved (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Short One Shot, but Aziraphale is very stupid, favorite animal, they're both so stupid, words cannot express how dumb they are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23070400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableDoll/pseuds/IneffableDoll
Summary: In which Crowley asks an innocent question and gets an innocent answer. With less-than angelic implications.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 219





	What’s Your Favorite Animal?

“Hey, angel,” Crowley said. “What’s your favorite animal?”

It was evening and the bookshop was closed early (of course). Crowley had shown up unannounced as usual and flopped onto Aziraphale’s couch uninvited. All very routine, now a number of months - nearly half a year - since Armageddon. 

Aziraphale hadn’t even glanced up when Crowley entered, so used to Crowley barging in that he mightn’t have even noticed or cared. But he did now, averting his gaze from whatever abysmally gigantic tome was resting in his lap, and saw Crowley sprawled on the sofa like he owned it, looking at his phone.

“What?” Aziraphale asked. He had been reading and barely registered that words had been spoken, let alone what the words were. Book things, you know?

“Your favorite animal,” Crowley repeated. “What is it?”

Aziraphale chuckled softly. “What a strange question to ask out of the blue!”

Crowley lifted his phone slightly. “It’s trending on Twitter for some reason. Hashtag ‘Favorite Animal.’ So, I thought I’d ask.” In response to the blank expression he received, Crowley continued sarcastically, “The people who live in my phone are talking about it.”

The angel rolled his eyes. “They don’t live inside of your phone, Crowley. Even I know that.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Hush, you.”

Crowley elected to ignore this direction and carry on. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

The demon lifted his eyebrows.

“Ah, right.” Aziraphale considered the question for a moment with much more care and reverence than was necessary. “As an angel, I love all living things, of course. They’re all God’s creatures. So, I suppose it would be wrong to have a favorite.”

Crowley sat up, sliding his phone in his pocket. “Do you have a favorite flower?”

“Mmm. Perhaps a daisy, or a primrose?”

“Plants are living things.”

Aziraphale sighed. “That’s different, Crowley. They’re not...sentient.”

Crowley laughed, perhaps a little harder than he should’ve, but shook his head when Aziraphale arched a curious eyebrow. The angel didn’t need to know the utter breadth and depth of that particular conversation. “Still. Give it a go. Not like Heaven cares. Besides, we both know it’s rabbits or kittens or something insufferably soft.”

“No, it’s not,” Aziraphale responded far too quickly. He realized this mistake immediately.

Crowley felt the demonic smirk crawling across his face, and he leaned forward with an unnecessary flourish. “So, you _do_ have a favorite, then. Out with it, angel.”

“Well.” Aziraphale looked up as though God might be watching. “Suppose it couldn’t hurt.” He swallowed and broke out into a small, fond smile. “I guess my favorite animal has always been snakes.”

Crowley’s expression froze, eyes a little too wide. His smirk felt fake, but it wouldn’t slide completely. Run a hand through his ruffled hair in nonchalance, force his tense shoulders to chill, and finally have the decently to force his face into something that said this knowledge wasn’t absolutely killing him and that he definitely wasn’t going to be dwelling on that for the next seven centuries.

“Snakes, huh?” he finally replied after a too-long beat, when he was sure his voice wouldn’t give anything away. “Wouldn’t’ve expected that from you, of all people.”

Aziraphale looked confused. “Why is that?”

Where the Hell to begin? “Come on, angel. You know.”

The angel apparently didn’t, thick as he was. “They’re lovely creatures, my dear. These lithe, long things, with gorgeous eyes, the adorable forked tongue! And everyone thinks they’re rather scary, but mostly they’re just very sweet under the scaly exterior.”

Ah, double meanings. Crowley didn’t know that, though. Actually, Aziraphale didn’t totally know, either.

“They’re not all that,” Crowley found himself saying, and immediately wishing he hadn’t. “The eyes are just weird. Most people hate them.”

“Well, I don’t. I think snake eyes are the prettiest in the world.”

Crowley felt the heat rising in his face. Slowly, ever so slowly and not too pointedly, he lifted a hand to take off his sunglasses. Folded them carefully, crooked them into the curve of his pointed neckline, trying to make it look casual. But his words came out much softer than he’d meant them. “Snakes are supposed to be cursed creatures, you know. Cursed to slither about across the earth for all their days as punishment.”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley’s unveiled amber eyes for a long minute, the pupils of the demon thin and wary; the angel’s face dawned with realization and he flushed. “Ah. Um. I didn’t mean...that. Just, you know, snakes.”

Crowley didn’t reply.

“I genuinely forgot my dear. I didn’t even think about it, honestly. But I can see now why my answer would sound strange to you.”

“More than a little strange!” Crowley laughed, only a little forced, as he let himself fall into a casual smile again, finally gaining back a modicum of composure. Aziraphale hadn’t said what he did because of him, then. A sigh of relief – mingled with disappointment he did not acknowledge. “An _angel’s_ favorite animal is the tempter of original sin! Isn’t that something else.”

“Well, I can’t help it!” Aziraphale said defensively. “I simply thought they were lovely from the instant I saw one.”

“You-”

Crowley’s mind went blank.

Oh.

Uh. Yeah. He said that.

Huh.

Okay.

That’s...something.

Crowley was silent as the dead. He merely stared at Aziraphale, whites of his eyes consumed with the sunset tones of his irises and expanded pupils. The angel had gone very, very still, looking utterly confounded at what he said, the same disbelief etched across his face that was ringing in Crowley’s ears. Everything was red.

“I...was the first snake," Crowley pointed dumbly.

Aziraphale nodded with a jerk, tearing his eyes away to linger on the bookshelves with sudden interest. Ah, yes, lovely bookshelves, he ought to dust them. Maybe reorganize them again. “Yes, so you were.”

Crowley swallowed and stood up, shoving the sunglasses back on unceremoniously. “Well, I think I’m gonna head out for the night. Um. See you?”

Aziraphale looked startled but stood too and walked Crowley to the door. “Of course. Tomorrow, then?”

Every word they exchanged sounded like a question.

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

Crowley stood in front of a mirror in his flat for three hours, staring at the black snake marking that twisted on his right cheek.

Snakes.

Well then.

**Author's Note:**

> The real reason Crowley accused Aziraphale of favoring kittens is because, well. Kettle to the pot, as they say.
> 
> 6.19.20 EDIT: Now with a sequel called [Demons Are Not Soft for Kittens, How Dare You, Ngk-](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24809869) ! Give it a read if you like!


End file.
